First Day and great start! I love it when Sunday is the first day of the year. I get to start of the year with praise to my King and message from God through our pastor fit for the day. We got home, had some lunch, and then when Brooklyn got up, we went on a hike at the Paradise Valley conservation area. All six of us and Charlotte (our dog) too. I also baked bread today which is always a treat.
Pastor Steve took a small break from our verse-by-verse study of Acts to preach on Psalms 1 today. If you know my posts then you know that my Life Passage is Psalms 1:1-3 which I use as a guiding passage for my life. So, when Pastor Steve asked us to open our bibles to this passage, I was so ecstatic. The Lord is doing something this year in my life, and I cannot wait to be a part of it no matter what it requires of me. Pastor Steve’s coverage and teaching on this passage as a way to find ‘True Happiness’ this next year was spot on.
There were a couple of things he did not call out today that I have learned as nuances of this passage.
- The passage does not say that this ‘Blessed’ man’s life would be easy, only that he would be blessed and happy in it.
- ‘… yields fruit in its season’ meaning that there are sometimes that are not in season. I feel that this a ‘grace of God’ moment where God calls us into action and there are times when He doesn’t. The goal of those is to always being prepared to have results at the time when we are called into season. When we are not in season it is no less of a call to be aligned with God’s will and purposes.
Pastor Steve’s Sunday Sermon (Sermon starts at 26:37)
1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Psalms 1 [ESV]